The subject matter disclosed herein relates generally to heat sink and flow technology for computer servers and, more specifically, to enclosure systems and methods for cooling computing components in a computing system.
Computing systems, such as enterprise-class servers and storage arrays, generate a considerable amount of heat during operation. These computing systems often include many components, such as processors, memory modules, disk drives, power supplies, and other components, all of which may contribute to the overall heat output of the system. In a typical data center environment, multiple computing systems are mounted in racks and operated in close proximity to one another. As server density increases, so does the total amount of heat generated. This heat poses challenges in the form of risks to the operational health of the server, or to the power consumption and cooling of the data hosting facility. As computing systems heat up, the performance of the various individual components can be negatively impacted by high operating temperatures, potentially resulting in reductions in computing speed, or an increased error rates, or even a complete failure of the device. Consequently, data hosting facilities spend a significant amount of money on traditional cooling equipment and electricity.
To protect computing systems, some known datacenters circulate cool air into the datacenter environment and pull hot air away from the computing systems via a system of fans and vents. However, air cooling alone may be insufficient, limiting the computing densities of some computing systems and datacenters.
In light of this, server manufacturers have responded in different ways to these challenges. Some known data storage devices are now engineered to reduce the amount of electricity needed for operation, resulting in a reduction of heat generated. In other known systems, the number of data storage devices within a single enclosure (i.e., the “device density” of the enclosure) has been limited to alleviate heat concerns. While this reduces the heat generated within an enclosure, it also limits the storage capacity of the enclosure, and so increases the number of enclosures necessary: As a result, the size and expense requirements of the data hosting facilities likewise increase.